Product Development Recommendations
1. Expand the USFA course offerings to include a course designed for community colleges and four-year colleges and universities that stresses the concepts and process of master planning. Ideally, this course would be taught by someone with planning experience and focus on training to develop the skills and motivation for data collection analysis.
2. The NFA should offer the equivalent material in a stand-alone course–something other than an EFO residence program course.
3. The course and informational materials need to be available on the Internet and formatted for CD-ROM use. Make updates, case studies, and online help available. Present them in an interactive format, perhaps scenario-based, that would allow the students to walk themselves through the course. A hard-copy introduction would be more of a marketing tool; the course materials would be presented in electronic, not document, form.
4. Develop a simulation or game component to the course to facilitate teaching the concepts.
5. The planning process must include a strong mitigation component. This includes public education on the use of smoke detectors and sprinklers and the need to embrace fire protection codes and standards during building design and construction. Relate it to other pilot mitigation programs such as “Sustainable Cities” and “Disaster-Resistant Communities.”
6. The “document” needs to be consolidated, incorporating successes and non-successes, model agreements, and ordinances. Repackage the materials with the emphasis on making it easier for the student to use them. Review successes and nonsuccesses is a way that will help students learn about the process.
7. Encourage the use of MIS products that support the process, and revise the material to include updated “how-to” guides. This will guide the user in determining which data are good and which are not.
8. Market aggressively. This is the key to the program`s success.
9. Develop some kind of program that recognizes organizations that have a high degree of participation or accomplishment in master planning. This program would bestow a certificate of recognition and not involve a grant.
10. Focus on training to develop the skills in and encourage the motivation for data collecting and analysis and for adapting and utilizing the data in the planning process.
